CRPS My Journey: Chapter 18 - Pushing limits, calculating the risk!

Time!

Sometimes in life things happens at a slow pace...other times it happens all at once. Ever wondered why bad days and experiences usually feel like time is dragging by slowly, but good days, and moments when you are having fun, feels as if time flies? Studies have actually been done on this and psychologists came to the following conclusion:

"Why does time seem to move faster when you're doing something enjoyable and slower when you're bored? This phenomenon has given rise to a popular saying you've probably heard many times before: time flies when you're having fun. Why does it do that?

Psychologists who have studied this phenomenon have confirmed that people do indeed perceive time differently depending upon their mental state and the activities they're engaged in. If you think about it, it just makes common sense.

When you're bored or doing something you'd rather not be doing, your mind is not occupied and it tends to wander. When it wanders, it often wanders toward the clock, as you think about how much time must pass until you're able to do something you'd rather be doing.

On the other hand, when you're happily engaged in an activity you enjoy, your mind tends to be fully focused on the fun you're having. You don't worry as much about time passing, because you're enjoying the moment while it lasts.

Researchers who have studied time perception have made some interesting findings lately. For example, not all enjoyable time flies by at the same speed. Researchers believe that simply being happy and content will not necessarily make time seem to pass more quickly.

However, if you're engaged in an activity or pursuit that is focused on achieving a goal, then time really does fly by as you're having fun. Researchers believe that the excitement generated by the active pursuit of a goal is what causes us to perceive time passing quickly.

Another interesting finding is that we tend to perceive time differently from memory compared to when events are taking place. For example, if you're on vacation having fun, the days seem to go by so quickly. If you're in school, however, the days might seem to drag by very slowly.

When you think about these things several months later from memory, your perceptions of them are usually reversed. Those boring days that seemed to drag by as you experienced them seem to have occurred quickly when you look back on them. Your vacation, on the other hand, will seem like it lasted much longer than it felt at the time.

Researchers point to how your memory works for an explanation. When you think back about something, you must retrieve events from your memory in order to reconstruct events and attempt to judge the duration of time those events lasted.

On vacation, you made lots of memories and there are many events to recover and remember. These many events make your vacation seem longer in memory than it felt as it was occurring. Conversely, when you look back over a typical week with few specific memories, those few memories make that time seem like it passed much more quickly than it did when those days seemed to inch by as you experienced them." - https://www.wonderopolis.org/

But then again there is also the other side of the coin. Apart from this phenomena of the experience or feeling of time slowing down or speeding up, there is also the idea or feeling of certain days that pass by without any major memorable events, while other days are filled with a number of memorable events, regardless of whether they are good or bad memories or events.

I have found CRPS to often favour the latter. The bad days seem to linger and the time tends to stall in anticipation of the good days that will come, and the good days speed by way too fast. But then again, when the good days do happen, we tend to get so focussed on the excitement of having a good day or having less pain, that we miss out on so much other experiences that the good day bring. The bad days however, we often experience strewn with bad experiences and memories. In conclusion, what it boils down to, as I have said before, is your state of mind. We all have the power to choose what we take away from our experiences and what memories we want to hold on to. We do not have to be victims or prisoners of our bad experiences. With CRPS, pain is inevitable, but it does not have to define us. There are so many stories out there of people living with CRPS, physical disabilities, incurable diseases etc that chose not to let that define who they are. And these people have often overcome challenges in their lives that society said they would never be able to do.

Pushing limits, calculating the risk!

Both my kids started taking golf lessons this year. Last Sunday I had the privilege of having them teach me what they have learnt thus far. It was so great to be doing something with them that they enjoy. Golf is a game that I wanted to play for as long as I can remember, but never had the opportunity to do so. I even bought a set of clubs from a good friend a couple of years ago, but still were not able to use it. On Sunday this all changed. As the boys were teaching me and hitting some balls, I joined them and began to do the same. Hitting the balls was a bit hard on Buddy as I would literally feel every connection the club made to the ball as it travelled up the club into my hand. But I was able to push through the first couple of hits before I had to give Buddy a rest. So hitting a ball with a club, using predominantly your CRPS hand, may not necessarily be the best option, but I would not have done it if I did not calculate the risk beforehand. And sometimes the joy on your children's faces and the bonding moment that you create, trumps the risk that you face when doing that activity. The pain I can always work on; the bonding moment I could never get back if I missed it. But then again, I have always been in the position of taking calculate risk, even in my current profession it is all about calculating risk and doing risk assessments. 

Pushing limits, taking calculated risks and keeping the balance means the difference between living life and just surviving life. And being a survivor of CRPS does not mean that I just need to be a survivor of life. If I have the slightest of opportunities to live life - even if it mean that I need to painfully push my boundaries - I am going to grab it with both hands. Grabbing it only with Buddy though, would be disastrous to say the least...but that is just it. We often focus so hard on our affected body part, that we forget that we have the rest of our body that may not be affected, but rather be neglected due to our focus on that one disability. We have talked before about the body being a unity. When we experience pain in one part of our body, our whole body and mind set is affected. When you have migraine, your whole body is affected - you feel tired and weak, every action creates even more pain and discomfort, your eyes cannot handle bright light, your ears can't handle loud noises, you even try to give softer steps as each step may feel like a hammer pounding away in your head. In a way it is your body's response to force you to settle down and rest so that the migraine can pass. 

When you have something like CRPS in your right hand for example, like I have - and in this case my dominant hand - it is as if the rest of your body goes into defence mode in order to protect this one body part. The problem with this is, that because this happens, which is not wrong as that is how the human body was designed to operate, we often neglect the rest of the body, instead of finding ways of stimulating the rest of the body. I don't exercise because I cannot do pull ups or push-ups due to my injured hand, but I forget that there is nothing wrong with my legs or my left hand - so why don't I use those parts of my body to exercise. We need to transform our minds, start thinking outside the box, start taking calculated risks. It does not mean not protecting my affected limb. On the contrary, I am actually allowing my body to build up stronger defences in order to better protect my affected limb, by activating my body's own natural drug cabinet, by living healthier, by keeping up a good heart rate, by releasing more feel good endorphins that helps relieve pain, reduces stress and improve a sense of well-being. 

Yes, we take medications and do treatments, and even though I am not against medication, I do not think that medication was ever meant to replace our body's own line of defence. I believe it was rather developed to assist and strengthen your body's own natural line of defence. As humans however we often become so dependent on medication that we forget that our bodies still have the ability to build its own defences. Of course there are those people that does not have immune systems that can protect them - that is real - but for a number of us, we still have the abilities to reduce our pain, to heal, to live more fulfilled lives. When we cut ourselves, we put a plaster on. It is not the plaster that heals us. The plaster acts as an aid that allows the body to heal itself. Through blood cells, platelets and so forth, the body puts processes in place to heal itself. Sometimes it becomes just harder to rebuild those defences on its own. And as we rebuild those defences, the brain rewires itself all the time. This process is called Neuroplasticity. 

Neuroplasticity: "It is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural pathways throughout life and in response to experiences. While the brain usually does this itself in response to injury or disease, when humans focus their attention enough, they can slowly rewire these pathways themselves." (Colorado State University Neuro Research)

Finding my way back home

In Chapter 17 I shared that I will be going for another rhizotomy on 15 March 2023. Unfortunately, it had to be postponed for a second time, as I landed up in hospital with cellulitis in both legs. Not my most favourite place to be, but it does give me time to work on this chapter and also to read up a bit more on therapies and CRPS. How long I will be here...I am not sure, but hopefully not too long.

One of the things that I spoke about last time, was finding my way back home, back to my family. That means getting off Cymgen. I think we had a good run, but it is time now to go our separate ways. I need to get my emotional attachment back. What that may entail is still a mystery. One of my major concerns is how I will react on getting my emotions back. If it is going to be anything like last year, when I went on Lyrica again, and I had that rush of different emotions all at once that totally overwhelmed me, then I am going to have to brace myself for impact. That was the worst experience of my life, feeling happy, sad, frustrated, angry, every emotion you can think of all at once. But I am trying to not allow my concern to become a fear as I look forward to really feel the emotional connection with my wife and boys again. My wife jokingly made the comment the other day, that they will have to watch their step from now on -  referring to my angry, short tempered and irritated state that I have been in when my pain levels were through the roof. And although that definitely is a concern for me as well, I do believe that I have gained enough skills in dealing with pain in the last two years, to prevent that from happening - as far as humanly possible that is.

Don't get me wrong, some things that I would like to keep is the ability to not feel emotional pain, or experience those long dragging days of feeling miserable when something bad happens. Also, being able to keep emotions out of work duties when you need to be tough, resilient and focussed. But who knows, perhaps I have adapted enough on the Cymgen to be able to switch some of these things on as and when needed. I do think that practising mindfulness would also help with this. 

A month ago the doctors started me on Neorontin (Epleptin) of which Gabapentin is the main substance. Thus far, I have had no side effects yet. So this week I have started to taper off the Cymgen and will be continuing to do so for the next couple of months. Not sure what to expect though as everyone that have come off it has had different experiences. But hopefully it won't be too bad. And that is just it. I have calculated the risk with the information that is available to me, and I am willing to take that risk if it means finding my way back to my family.

An Intro to Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DTB)

Something that I mentioned in the last chapter was DBT skills and I want to focus on that a little bit, and hopefully a little bit more in each chapter after this one. So there are two treatment methods, CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy)

CBT focuses on how your thoughts, feelings and behaviour influence each other. This set of skills focus on giving us the ability to recognize when our thoughts may become troublesome. It gives us techniques to redirect those thoughts. From there the name Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The Webster dictionary describes the term cognitive as follows:  "of, relating to, or being conscious mental activities (as thinking, reasoning, remembering, imagining, learning words, and using language). CBT is based on the idea that our thoughts and behaviours influence our feelings. Therefor, in changing the way we think about and react to situations, we will be able to feel better about ourselves and about our experiences.

DBT on the other hand place the emphasis more towards regulating emotions, being mindful, and learning to accept pain. These skills helps us to find ways to accept ourselves, feel safe, and manage our emotions to help regulate potentially destructive or harmful behaviours. Why is it called dialectical? The term "dialectical" comes from the idea that bringing together two opposites in therapy -- acceptance and change -- brings better results than either one alone. (www.webmd.com) In layman's terms it is the idea or the ability to view issues from multiple perspectives and to arrive at the most reasonable reconciliation of two opposites. For example, it is raining but it is 30 degrees Celcius outside, or in therapy I may be strong, yet vulnerable. You can have both fear and courage. Or you feel that you cannot go on, yet you push through and still go on. So, whereas CBT focus on changing the way we think and react to situations, DBT also deal with that, but goes further in helping us to apply those discoveries and changes in thought in a way that are able to accept who we are, and what we are going through and experience, so that we can change our behaviour towards ourselves and our situation.

For example, I have shared in the past how I suddenly started to feel anxious when I entered a certain store, but how I made a point to go to that specific store more often and not to run away. Calculated risk is not always jumping off a cliff into deep enough water. We all take calculated risks every day. Most of them we do not even think about. Even something that may seem so simple like facing your anxiety in a store, is a calculated risk. I have the potential to shut down, run away, not set foot in that store again, shout, scream, curl into a shivering ball, have a panic attack...the list goes on...but I have also the potential to overcome my fear and anxiety, to break a vicious cycle, to calm myself in the midst of the storm, to learn and grow from my experience(s), to push through a difficult experience in order to overcome my greatest challenges. Acting through opposite forces - being brave and calm while I am feeling afraid and anxious. Calculated risk means understanding every little detail you can about the risk. This will help you discover any red flags and potential issues beforehand, and you will be ready with the answers or at least have a fair understanding of the possible setbacks.